Before we get into the Crime Story, I should provide you with a little background on Iceland’s legal system; it operates on the Civil Law System and finds influence from the Danish legal system. The courts divide into District Courts and the Supreme Court. Iceland abolished capital punishment in 1928.
A little about Iceland. I actually flew through Iceland when i moved to France on one of the last flights flown by no defunt WOW, a discount airline based out of the capitol city of Reykjavik. Iceland is a Nordic country nestled between Greenland and the European continent. Iceland actually lies on the North American and European tectonic plate; therefore, there are Volcano’s in Iceland, and they are some of the world’s most active. With Nordic traditions, the country has a population of 360,000 and its own language, Icelandic, Iceland is known as the land of ‘fire and ice”. Iceland has an extremely low crime rate, the murder rate in Iceland is 20 times lower than the world average, Iceland record just one violent death in 2012. Perhaps this is why our story today fascinates me. Our crime story involves 2 disappearances, and not 1 but 6 confessions!. Talk about reasonable doubt! But did they even do it? Listen to the story that gripped Iceland for the past 4 and a half decades.
Our Crime Story takes place in 1974, with 18-year-old boy Gudmundur Einarsson, a pale young man with long brown hair, and a pronounced jaw. Regarded as a calm, quiet man, who would never lose an arm wrestle, Gudmundur had just finished high school and wanted to become a mechanic. At the time of our story he worked as a laborer. On January 26th, 1974 Gudmundur along with some friends went to a rough and tumble night club in a city 10 kilometers south of Reykjavik. Gudmundur got drunk and stepped outside into the cold and started walking. At 2am two women spotted Gudmundur on a road near the nightclub from their car, he was seen with a man wearing a yellow shirt who both women described as being small in stature. The other man threw himself across the hood of the car and the girls drove off. Gudmundur was last seen between 2-3am by himself off the side of a road; he appeared very intoxicated. Gudmundur Einarsson was never seen again.
The next day Gudmundur’s father worried, after his son had not returned home from a night out, contacted the police. As word got out people worried that Gudmundar could have died from a drunken fight or that he may wandered off into the lava while walking home. Weather may have played a role as a storm swept through the area and this made the search more difficult to conduct. No answers resulted from these searches. Gudmundur Einarsson seemed to vanish off the face of the earth.
10 months after the disappearance on Gudmundur Einarsson on November 19, 1974 Geirfinner Einarsson (no relation to Gudmundur), a 32-year-old man with a wife and two children living in Keflavik, 50 kilometers southwest of Reykjavik enters our story. That night after Geirfinner finished dinner a friend came over to watch television with him while his wife, Gudny was out. At 10pm, Geirfinner asked his friend for a ride to go meet someone at a cafe. While in the car he stated that he should have brought a gun to the meeting. Whoever was supposed to meet failed to show up so he left. Upon returning home the telephone rang, Geirfinner’s son picked it up and heard an unfamiliar voice asking for his father. Geirfinner was handed the phone and said “I already came, Ok, I’m coming,” and left. The next day Geirfinner had not returned home; his car was found unlocked with keys still inside near the café. Geirfinner has not been seen since again. Unlike Gudmundur’s case Geirfinner’s disappearance definitely had a criminal element to it, foul play was suspected. Who had Geirfinner gone to meet, why did he feel he needed to be armed, what happened at the café the night of November 17th? A week later a clay sculpture of the man talking on the payphone in the café was created, they named the statue Clayfinner. Every Icelandic person knows of Clayfinner, who honestly looks like every man in Iceland.
So now we are going to transition a little bit and I am going to tell you about a different cast of characters, starting with Erla Bolladóttir, born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1955. Erla had blond hair and remained, thin throughout her life. Known for her exuberant and outgoing personality Erla loved American television. When she was younger Erla actually lived in the United States for a couple of years due to her father’s career. Apparently after working on a farm in remote Iceland, Erla was sexually assaulted. Her family noticed a shift in Erla’s behavior and manner after. She stole money from her father, started smoking cigarettes, and missing her curfew. While at a party in 1973 Erla met Saevar Ciesielski and the two started dating. Saevar, small in stature, had shoulder length brown hair was born in Iceland to an Icelandic mother and Polish father, which made him different in Iceland. Saevar grew up poor yet loved art. The headstrong young man freely shared his opinion and soon found himself in Briedavik Reform School after being busted for stealing and for committing other other petty crimes. There is someone for everyone, so the saying goes, and Erla saw Saevar as her man. Erla became pregnant and gave birth in 1975 to a daughter named Julia.
Saevar told Erla he wanted to commit the perfect crime. He just could not get crime out of his head. Erla and Saevar started embezzling money from Erla’s work and the police were starting to close in on their scheme. In December 1975, Erla and Saevar were arrested. Erla and Saevar spent the night in solitary confinement then questioned the next day. They both denied the embezzlement, and when they weren’t being questioned, they were in solitary confinement, this was the case for days. And Erla just wanted to get back to her baby, so on the sixth day in custody Erla spilled the beans about their crime.. On December 19th, 1975 she signed her statement about the embezzlement and was ready to be back home. As she was leaving the prison, anofficer asked, “Do you know a guy by the name Gudmundur Einarsson?” She said yes I knew him, and stated she rode with him in a car, partied with him and she thought he might have had a crush on her. She had no idea Gudmundur was even missing. The officers pressed her for more information, what was she doing the weekend he disappeared. Repeating the question “Do you know anything?” over and over for hours, the question turned into an interrogation after Erla says she remembers a nightmare she had had.
In the nightmare, Erla had spent the evening at a nightclub before returning home. But around 3:30-4:00am she heard noises outside her window. She knew that it could not have been Saevar because he had travelled to Denmark. Outside the window she heard whispering and saw shadows of people. She recognized one of the voices to be Saevar and she heard the voices of two of his friends. Erla woke up to find that she had dedicated on herself and messied her bed. Perhaps not buying “the dream story” the police sent her back to solitary confinement telling her that something happened that night and she needed to remember it.
Before I tell you more of the Crime Story, I want to talk about the psychology of solitary confinement. According to the American Psychology Association, people in solitary confinement are “at grave risk of psychological harm”. People who spend extended time in solitary confinement can have trouble recognizing faces and their sense of direction is skewed. Extended periods in solitary confinement can also decrease in the size of the hippocampus. This region of the brain helps individuals with learning, memory, and spatial awareness. The sensory deprivation of solitary confinement can contribute to important health impairments, such as alterations of circadian rhythms, the internal biological clock that regulates overall the proper functioning of our bodies. Psychologists actually see extended periods of solitary confinement as torture.
Back to the Crime Story, While psychology has serious misgivings about solitary confinement, Erla’s time in solitary confinement did seemingly improve her memory and she now thought that her nightmare was not actually a nightmare; but, in fact a real event.. Investigators questioned her about whether her “nightmare” could have been the weekend that Gudmundur had disappeared. Erla confirmed that as a possibility. On December 20, 1975 authorities arrested Saevar and his friend Kristjan Vidar Vidarsson for involvement in the disappearance of Gudmundur Einarsson. When investigators showed Saevar what Erla said she saw the weekend boy Gudmundur disappeared, he said he was involved along with Kristjan, Tryggvi Runar Leifsson, and Albert Klahn Staftason. Police rounded all of the suspects up and arrested them two days later.
Kristjan told police that the night of Gudmundur’s disappearance that he was at Erla and Saevar’s house with Tryggvi and Gudmundur. Kristjan’s details get a bit murky here because he said he had drank too much. He stated that a fight broke out, and suddenly he drove off in a car with Erla, but then they came back to the house. He goes on to tell the police that Saevar and Tryggvi had done something in the laundry room, then they put something heavy in the trunk, drove for 15 minutes and disposed of something heavy enough and large enough to be a body. The problem with Kristjan’s story is that his timeline makes no sense, there was no indication how Gudmundur who was apparently goody two shoes ended up hanging out with a petty criminal like Saevar. It just did not make sense. The boys were interviewed multiple times and their stories become odder and odder. No feasible came to the surface; nonetheless the police charge each one with different charges even though no shred of physical evidence came to light.
The police now think they solved one disappearance and maybe they can solve another. The police asked Saevar about Geirfinner Einarsson who we remember disappeared after getting a phone call to go to a café. Saevar gave a statement in January 1976, that he saw Geirfinner the night of his disappearance. Saevar said he went for a drive with some men to collect Geirfinner from the café but Geirfinner never showed up. Apparently these geniuses were connecting with Geirfinner for a alcohol smuggling job. When Geirfinner did not connect with them at the café they called him then went to the docks to meet up. They went on a boat without Saevar and apparently got into an accident and now claimed Geirfinner drowned. Erla, Saevar, Kristjan, Erla’s half-brother, and a friend Magus Leopoldsson admitted to being on the dock. Magus Leopoldsson had a resemblance to the clay head, Clayfinner. Later Tryggvi and Albert admitted to being involved with Geirfinner’s disappearance. The policy also arrested Gudjon Skarphedinsson who haappened to to be the former teacher of Saevar. After spending 17 days in solitary confinement Gudjon confessed to being involved in Geirfinner’s murder. The boat story evolved and changed to Erla shooting and killing Geirfinner on land.
The Iceland False Confession murderers were held in solitary confinement for extended periods of time. Albert for 88 days, Erla- 241 days, Gudjon- 412 days, Tryggvi- 627 days, Kristjan- 682 days and Saevar a WHOPPING 741 days. Remember what our friends from the field of psychology think about solitary confinement. To make matters even more harsh, guards left the lights on when they tried to sleep, played loud music, interrogated, and Saevar claimed that the guards held his head under water in order to get him to confess. Kristjan attempted suicide twice and authorities also had him pose in recreated crime scene photos. Erla even questioned if she had even had a baby. A detective named Gisli Gudjonsson gave Gudjon a lie detector test in 1976. Gudjon broke down and said he did not remember the murder happening.
One of the world’s leading experts on false memories, Gisli Gudjonsson states that people can and often do remember events or adjust memories in ways that never actually occur. False Memory Syndrome can be certainly be caused a traumatic episode such as harsh interrogation or long term solitary confinement.. He states that Gudjon kept a diary while in solitary confinement and our previously mentioned expert states that this diary was the best example of False Memory Syndrome that he has ever seen. Gisli believe that the six suspects did not commit the murders, have no idea what happened, and just tried to appease and cooperate with the police so that they would not get more solitary confinement. In 2018, a court acquitted everyone of their involvement in the disappearances of Gudmunder and Geirfinner, but Erla still faces a perjury charge. Sadly, all six had already served their sentences Note: Life sentences are normally 20 years in Iceland.
Following his release, Saevar began to abuse alcohol, he lived in Colorado for a bit, had two sons, lived in Denmark, which he enjoyed because no one knew him; he died in 2011. After Gudjon’s release he moved to Denmark to study theology, then returned to Iceland to become a priest. As of 2020, Erla still lives in Iceland, she has participated in documentaries covering her experience. Everyone in Iceland knows Erla yet she finds life difficult struggles to keep a job. Albert, worked construction and Tryggvi worked in a ship factory. Kristjan had a hard time following his release, he had trouble finding employment, and returned to prison after a domestic assault on his wife. Kristjan recently passed away.
But the question still remains, what happened to Gudmundur Einarsson and Geirfinner Einarsson? Did the six who were arrested and charged have something to do with it? Doubtful in mind, no physical evidence ties them to the crime and most modern juries see this as reasonable doubt. Honestly, I do not see much if any circumstantial evidence. It was all stories. Another theory is that Gudmundur walking drunk that night in 1974 could have frozen to death in the elements, slipped into the lava, made his way to the ocean and drowned or there could have been foul play by another person. But if there was foul play, I find it hard that no evidence has shown up in the last 45 years. People do love to talk. I can not imagine that someone could not keep their mouth shut for this long, assuming they remained alive. As to his body not being found, Iceland is sparsely populated with large isolated areas, so therefore I do not see it as impossible for him not to have been found, and after 45 years there would not be much left to find of him. As for Geirfinner’s case, a criminal element exists because of the phone call. I do believe foul play happened. My out of left field theory is that Gudmundur was killed as “mistaken identity” whereas Geirfinner was the true target. Apparently the name Gudmunder Einarsson was a common name, and it is odd that Gudmundur and Geirfinner had that same last name. After a bit more research, there are not many surnames for men in Iceland, I think this futher goes into the theory of mistaken identity. Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever get the answers to the disappearances of Gudmundur Einarsson and Geirfinner Einarsson.
What do you think happened to Gudmundur and Geirfinner? Do you think Erla, Saevar, Kristjan, Tryggvi, Albert and Gudjon had something to do with it? I would love to hear your thoughts, you can comment on a crime story’s instragram as @acrimestorypod. where I will be posting images from today’s story. Thank you so much for listening. If you could please leave a review of the podcast, it helps others find it. Also, if you could tell a friend about A Crime Story, I would greatly appreciate it. I hope to see you next time where I will be covering A Crime Story from International Waters. You won’t want to miss it.
A Crime Story is hosted and written by me, Kailin Lois. Sources for today’s episode can be found in the show’s notes. Theme Music is from Ross Bugden. Additional story editing is brought to you by my father, Mike. Francois Tardinov helps me produce the show. Thank you for listening to A Crime Story! Stay safe and be kind.
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